


I dig my hands into the absolute (the surface breaks)

by blackkat



Series: Jon Antilles prompts [11]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24967516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “You have to take her to the crèche, Antilles,” Nico says sternly.Jon doesn’t clutch at the little Togruta girl, doesn’t bury her in his robes and hide her away from Nico's judgmental stare, doesn’t pick her up and run with her. Personally, he thinks it’s an admirable show of self-restraint, but given the downturn of Nico's mustache, he doesn’t agree.
Relationships: Doom/Jon Antilles, Jon Antilles & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Jon Antilles prompts [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941646
Comments: 77
Kudos: 962
Collections: Star Wars Alternate Universes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: So somehow my brain jumped from Jon becoming an accidental Finder to him being Ahsoka's Finder, to him actually taking Ahsoka as his Padawan. Just imagine Ahsoka teleporting and phasing through things kicking ass. I'm just having feelings about this match up.

“You have to take her to the crèche, Antilles,” Nico says sternly.

Jon doesn’t clutch at the little Togruta girl, doesn’t bury her in his robes and hide her away from Nico's judgmental stare, doesn’t pick her up and run with her. Personally, he thinks it’s an admirable show of self-restraint, but given the downturn of Nico's mustache, he doesn’t agree.

“She found me,” he says instead, hoarse, the only defense he can muster. “It was the will of the Force—”

“Initiates must be raised in the crèche,” Nico interrupts. “When the child is older, _then_ you may take her as a padawan, but she is a _toddler_. A man like you cannot care for her, Antilles.”

Jon doesn’t flinch, but he swallows. Looks down to where Ahsoka is clinging to the hem of his tunics and can hardly breathe through the panic beating a tattoo on the inside of his chest. She looks back at him readily, wide blue eyes and stubby montrals, lekku barely to her shoulders, and he _knows_ that she should go to the main Temple, knows that she would do better there, that he isn't fit to train any padawan, let alone a child so young. But—

She found him in the grasslands on Shili, sneaked out of her home in the middle of the night to trek across a kilometer of scrub in the complete darkness and find him where he’d collapsed after his fight. The first thing Jon had seen when he’d finally opened his eyes was Ahsoka looking down at him, and the first thing he’d felt was the Force _singing_.

Always, always, he’s let the Force guide his feet. He’s never felt any call as clear as the one he feels to Ahsoka.

“Jon?” Ahsoka asks, tugging at his tunic, and Jon's breath hitches. He sinks carefully to the ground on his knees, can't help holding out his arms, and Ahsoka doesn’t even hesitate. She clambers into his lap, wrapping her small arms around his neck, and Jon's breath hitches. He wraps her up in a careful hug, so very, very aware of how easily he could hurt her. Holds her close, this little girl who has never been afraid of him, who woke him and saved and wants to be with him, and—

It’s pure selfishness. Jon wants to keep her with him, wants to have her as his padawan, wants to teach her everything he knows and watch her grow and just _be_ for, but. That’s his want, not what’s best for Ahsoka.

Dark Woman trained him, and Jon is far too much like her. If he slips, if he gets frustrated, if he thinks that Ahsoka isn't advancing quickly enough, he might hurt her. He might fall back on how Dark Woman taught him. And if that happens, if Jon _does_ hurt Ahsoka, he’ll never forgive himself. Will let himself be swallowed by the lava on Mustafar, but—

It’s still a possibility. There’s still a _chance_ he could do something like that. And Nico is right. He can't risk it.

Jon isn't the type of person who should raise a child.

“Sorry,” he whispers, to Ahsoka and Nico in equal measure. “Sorry, you're right. It should be someone else.”

There's a long, long pause, and then Nico takes a breath. “Look for her again when she’s of an age to be a padawan,” he says, firm but not cruel. “Right now she is too young—”

“Oh, stuck a sock in it, Diath,” Knol says, and she slithers over the rocks to drop down next to Jon. He twitches hard, jerking around to put his back to her, Ahsoka protected with the breadth of his body, but Knol doesn’t move. Just watches him, head tipped, eyes thoughtful.

“Hey, kid,” she says to Ahsoka, warm, and crouches down. Cocks her head, mane falling over her shoulders, and asks, “What’s your name?”

“Ahsoka!” Ahsoka says brightly, and practically climbs up Jon's shoulder to get a better look at Knol. “You're a Jedi too!”

Knol snorts. “Just like Jon,” she says agreeably. “We’ve got a place with a lot of kids like you, and a lot of Jedi. You want to go meet them, sweetheart?”

Jon's heart lurches, and he ducks his head to hide behind his hood, trying not to let it show. Trying not to react, because it’s better and he can see that—

“I'm okay,” Ahsoka says cheerfully. “I've got Jon! He made me float!”

“There was an akul,” Jon says, before Nico can voice the protest that’s clear on his face. “When she found me, there was—I was keeping her away from it.”

“That how you got that pretty new set of scars?” Knol asks cannily, and tips his head pointedly to the side to brush a thumb over the five deep scars that skim his cheek and continue down over the back of his shoulder blade.

Jon means to answer, but before he can, Ahsoka pulls back. she looks at him, wide-eyed, and smiles. “Jon said he’d teach me to hunt an akul,” she says proudly. “So I can have a pretty headdress like my mom did!”

“Did, huh?” Knol studies Ahsoka for a moment longer, then smiles. “You're going to stick with Jon, aren’t you, kid?”

“Yeah!” Ahsoka says, emphatic. “I'm supposed to.”

“Did Antilles tell you that?” Nico asks warily, but before Jon can even flinch, Ahsoka frowns at him.

“I just know,” she says, like he’s an idiot for not knowing that. “I'm supposed to. Like you're supposed to sleep when it’s dark.”

Knol laughs, rising to her feet, and she punches Nico in the arm. He recoils with a curse that’s quickly muffled, and Jon hisses at him on instinct, pulling Ahsoka back like he can protect her ears that way.

Ignoring them both, Knol tosses her mane, then says, “Leave it, Nico. Keep an eye on them if you're really worried, but some padawans don’t end up at the Temple. Antilles was never going to have a regular padawan, and you know it.”

Seated above all of them, meditating on the sun-warmed rock, Fay makes a sound of mild agreement. “They’ll be good for each other,” she says, and opens her eyes, looking down at Jon. “You needed someone to pass your skills on to,” she says gently, and Jon swallows again, can't help but clutch Ahsoka a little closer.

It’s true that Dark Woman trained him specifically to pass on lost or dying skills. Jon never thought to have his own padawan, planned to let those skills—and her methods of teaching—die with him, but—

But he thinks, again, of opening his eyes on Shili, finding a child looking down at him. Remembers the moment, the way his heartbeat faltered and his head rang, and the knowledge that settled, immediate and implacable, in his bones, that whispered _this is right_.

The Force called him the Shili. The Force called Ahsoka to him. If it hadn’t been meant to happen, she could have stayed in her village, could have waited for the next Jedi passing through, who _would_ have taken her to the crèche. But instead, she found Jon. She saved him.

Jon just wants her to be _happy_. He wants the chance to prove that he can make her happy, this child who never flinched, never hesitated, simply picked him.

“I suppose,” Nico says, irritated, but not as much as he was a moment ago. “Very well. Congratulations on your padawan, Antilles, may she turn your hair grey at precisely the rate you deserve.”

“Jon?” Ahsoka asks, tugging at the edge of his hood, and Jon's breath shudders out of his lungs. That’s—permission. Or at least not condemnation. He’s selfish enough to take it.

“Yes?” he asks hoarsely, and Ahsoka beams at him.

“I'm staying,” she says. “We can see the other Jedi later. You have to teach me to hunt an akul first!”

“Okay,” Jon says quietly, and smiles back. it feels like someone has hollowed out his chest and filled it with sunlight. Filled it with fear and terror and _hope_. Fay wouldn’t agree if he was going to hurt Ahsoka. Maybe—maybe he can manage this.

His hands want to shake, but he wraps his arms tight around Ahsoka and doesn’t let them.

“Okay,” he whispers, and feels her tiny face press against his throat, her hands fist in his hood. She settles there, content, and Jon just—

Hangs on, and doesn’t let go.

(“We’re going to save a Master?” Ahsoka asks, grinning, with her hands on her lightsaber hilts already. “Can I have dibs on the Knight?”

“Don’t give him a heart attack,” Jon says, though his heart isn't in it. Ahsoka never listens to him, anyway.

Ahsoka rolls her eyes, like that will do anything to hide the eagerness vibrating through her. “I'm not going to _scare_ him,” she retorts, and then promptly ruins it by adding, “Not if he’s paying attention, anyway.”

Knight Skywalker is probably going to be the third Knight this month to level a complaint against Jon's padawan. _Again_. Jon sighs, but he can't help his faint smile as Ahsoka leans out of the LAAT/i, peering at the jungle below. It’s too thick for ships to land, and the explosive gasses escaping the ground mean jetpacks are a bad idea, but—well. That’s why the Council asked Jon to head the extraction.

“Nothing flashy,” he says, and Doom, behind him, muffles a laugh into a cough as best he can. When Jon gives him a pained look, Doom raises his hands.

“Sorry, sir,” he says. “I don’t know how to break it to you, but everything about what you can do is flashy.”

Jon flushes faintly, jerking his eyes back around to the open door, and feels Ahsoka snicker. She’s not deterred by the narrow look he gives her, either.

“You’ve been spending too much time around Knol,” he mutters, tugging his hood forward.

“Going to trip over your own feet again when Kenobi flirts with you?” Ahsoka asks archly. “Because that made for _great_ blackmail.”

Doom abruptly feels _far_ less amused, though when Jon shoots him a startled look, he can't make out any sort of expression through his helmet.

“Just saying,” Ahsoka says, smirking.

Far, far too much time with Knol, Jon tells himself, despairing, and sighs.

“Watch the trees,” he says firmly, and leaps out the open side of the transport. Concentrates, and _shifts_ , and turns—

Lands in a wash of glittering green light, with the same blooming next to him, and lunges, Ahsoka at his side.)


	2. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked what Doom and the other clones under Jon's command think of him and Ahsoka, and then this happened. Oops.

“Sir,” Doom says patiently, “the meeting is this way.”

His general pauses, halfway to what Doom is generously going to assume is the hallway, but is actually probably the closest window. The guilty duck of his head isn't promising where his actual attendance is concerned, but honestly once he’s in the room he’s out of Doom’s hands, so Doom just has to get him there.

There is also, potentially, the fact that if he doesn’t _stay_ in the meeting room Jon won't be stuck with General Kenobi, and Doom can only consider that a plus.

“Right,” Jon says, faintly miserable at being forced into social interaction that isn't with his padawan, and waits for Doom to fall into step with him before he reluctantly turns away from the window and lets himself be led towards the assembled clone commanders waiting on their Jedi. A few turn, looking at them, and Jon ducks his head and lets his hood fall forward over his face a little more, hiding.

Doom hasn’t quite figured out if he’s hiding the scars or hiding himself yet, but he’s working on it.

“Ahsoka?” Jon asks, quiet, and Doom chuckles.

“She left with General Unduli’s padawan,” he says. “I think they were talking about sweets.”

Jon sighs, like he doesn’t indulge his padawan at every turn, or cave as soon as she smiles at him. When he first saw that, Doom had worried a little that he’d be dealing with a spoiled brat as a commander, and a spineless general, but for all Jon's gentleness with his student, he’s a firm teacher and a brutal fighter, and Doom’s worries have been entirely put to rest.

“She’s going to get into trouble,” Jon mutters, “and then Master Luminara will complain about bad influences.”

“If the commander gets into trouble, she can get herself out of it,” Doom reminds him, because that’s one thing he’s seen time and again. Ahsoka has a nose for trouble and all the bad luck of a loth-cat with a crooked tail, but she’s more than capable of returning that trouble tenfold on whatever thinks to hurt her.

“Not even going to try to tell me that she’ll behave herself?” Jon asks, and Doom smiles at the thread of amusement in his voice.

“I would never, sir,” he says, and Jon makes a noise of pure resignation. Chuckling, Doom reaches out, dares to put a hand on Jon's back as he guides him forward, warm robes that make him think of warmer skin beneath, and—

“Ah, Master Antilles!”

Jon twitches, head turning like he’s judging the distance to the window, and for a moment Doom is almost tempted to push him in that direction and let him run. Before he can give in to the impulse, though, General Kenobi sweeps up on Jon's other side, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. It makes Jon flinch faintly, and Doom has to grit his teeth to keep from saying something unforgivably stupid to a high general.

“Master Kenobi,” Jon says, and takes a half-step to the side, right into Doom’s space. Doom tries not to feel smug, but he shifts over to give Jon room, flattening his hand against Jon's back. once Jon gets startled, or once he gets touched and doesn’t see it coming, he starts getting more and more wary until he’s flinching at everything, and Doom’s seen Ahsoka ease him back down enough times now to know that he just needs to be steady, to let Jon have his space but also not jerk away and stop touching him entirely.

General Kenobi smiles, charming, handsome. Doom kind of wants to shave his beard off. “Thank you again for the rescue, Jon. It was most timely, and I’ll admit it’s an unexpected pleasure to see you again after Queyta.”

“I’m glad you're still in one piece,” Jon says quietly, and Doom’s heard about Queyta in the vaguest of terms, knows it makes Ahsoka angry and Jon very quiet, knows that at least some of the terrible burn scars on Jon's back are from that mission, but he hadn’t realized Kenobi was part of it. He frowns a little, glancing at Jon, but the door is right ahead of them and he has to step back.

“Sir?” he says, and Jon turns to look at him, reluctantly easing his hood back for his meeting with the High Council. Despite his worry, despite his annoyance at Kenobi, Doom can't help but smile at him. The first time he’d seen Jon's face, weeks after being assigned to him, he’d practically walked into a wall. Jon might like to hide his scars, but—no Mandalorian worth their armor is ever going to think they're anything but beautiful.

“Yes, Doom?” Jon asks, and he doesn’t quite smile back, but there's a curve to his mouth that’s small and subtle and almost the same thing.

Doom wants to bury his fingers in Jon's hair, pull him in and wrap his arms around him and hang on tight. Instead, he says, “If I don’t see you after the meeting, sir, I’ll wait for you back in the gardens.”

That really does make Jon smile, and he inclines his head, knowing that Doom just practically gave him permission to sneak out of the meeting as soon as he gets the chance. “Thank you,” he says, and turns to the door, taking a breath.

“It’s not _quite_ like facing your execution,” Kenobi says, more or less cheerfully, and puts a hand on Jon's shoulder. More lightly, this time, Doom notices. “Come on, let’s see how many times we can make Ki-Adi-Mundi turn red and defend his Master’s honor.”

Jon winces, ducking his head, but he lets Kenobi push him gently into the room, the doors sealing behind them.

There's a long, long moment of silence, and then Wolffe groans, disgusted, and digs into his belt pouch. With a victorious sound, Gree holds out his hand, and Wolffe slaps a handful of meal credits into his palm, giving Doom a withering look.

“You couldn’t have hated your weird vagabond general and saved me a few caf credits?” he demands.

Doom rolls his eyes. “You bet against _Gree_?” he counters, and Gree chuckles, pocketing the chips.

“I figured you’d imprint,” he says easily. “Thanks, _vod_.”

“He can imprint all he wants, but if he keeps looking at my general like he’s sizing him up for a body bag, I won't be held accountable for my actions,” Cody says darkly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Then maybe your general should stop _harassing_ mine,” Doom retorts, and Wolffe snorts.

“Easy, easy,” Gree says, raising his hands and stepping in between them. “Cody—”

“General Kenobi isn't _harassing_ anyone!” Cody growls.

Doom bristles, stepping forward, and—

From down the hall, there's a loud whoop, a squawk, a shout. Half an instant later, Ahsoka and Commander Offee duck around the corner, giggling and breathless and grinning, and Ahsoka grins at Doom as she ducks around him.

“Doom, cover me!” she cries, and then they're out the window and gone. A moment later, Rex staggers after them, trailing pink smoke.

“Where—” he starts.

Silently, Doom points in the opposite direction than the girls went, and ignores the stares boring into the side of his head.

Rex squints down the hall, then groans. “Someone come help me get General Skywalker down off the ceiling,” he says. “Please.”

Doom doesn’t grin. He _doesn’t_. When Jon pokes his head out of the meeting room, takes one look at Rex, and winces, he definitely isn't laughing at his general’s suffering, either.


End file.
